


To Betray or Be Betrayed?

by romajstorovic



Series: Dooku Accidentally Saves The Galaxy [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Dooku Redemption (Star Wars), Gen, Order 66 Didn't Happen (Star Wars), dooku betrays palpatine, i didn’t mean to redeem him it just sort of happened, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29981499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romajstorovic/pseuds/romajstorovic
Summary: Dooku makes direct eye contact with Palpatine, who is ordering Anakin to kill him, and he says the only thing he can think of that will stay the boy’s hand.“Master,” he begs, eyes deliberately wide and voice excessively frail. “Master, please. My Lord, don’t let him kill me.”Anakin freezes, and looks at Dooku. “...what did you say?”
Relationships: Dooku & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dooku | Darth Tyranus & Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Rael Averross & Dooku
Series: Dooku Accidentally Saves The Galaxy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205339
Comments: 14
Kudos: 101





	To Betray or Be Betrayed?

The Count has always been controlled. He’s always been steady and firm and dependable, even before his Fall.

(Or his Rise, he thinks, because the Sith are so much more than anything the Jedi could offer him.)

He’s always stood the same way, back straight, nose upturned, looking down on everything as the superior being he knows he is. The only emotion he ever allowed himself to show was displeasure, because he knew it cut more keenly than simple anger. But now, on his knees, panting hard, Count Dooku allows himself to look scared.

The fear he shows is only embellished in part: he feels it, terror, stealing away the strength from his legs and the air from his lungs. His lightsaber burns hot and bright near his neck, and he leans away as far as he can. Perhaps he should face his inevitable death with some courage, some dignity, but following expectations has never really been his thing.

So he makes direct eye contact with Palpatine, who is ordering Anakin to kill him, and he says the only thing he can think of that will stay the boy’s hand.

“Master,” he begs, eyes deliberately wide and voice excessively frail. “Master, please. My Lord, don’t let him kill me.”

And it  works .

“...what did you say?” Anakin asks slowly, voice low and dangerous.

“I begged him not to kill me,” Dooku says, looking quickly between the Jedi and the Sith. “Lord Sidious, please, have I not served you well? Have I not -“

“Enough!” Palpatine snaps, fury written across his face. “Anakin! Kill him now and you can still save us.”

“Lord Sidious?” Anakin repeats, still dead-set on Dooku. “As in the Sith Lord we’ve been looking for?”

Dooku nods, careful of the blades still pointed at his neck. “He’s been grooming you,” he rushes out, “trying to get you to Fall. He’s using the Senator as bait. I have proof.”

“Is this true?” Anakin spits, turning to face the Sith Lord. He deactivates his lightsabers, sticking one in his belt and keeping Dooku’s firmly in his hand. He has, at least, the sense to use the Force to pin Dooku to the floor.

“Of course not! I would never betray the Republic, not after all I’ve done to help save it.”

“Lies!” Dooku calls out, and a rageful Anakin spins round to face him. “Look how easily he betrayed me,” he pleads. “I’ve served him faithfully for years, even when I was still a Jedi, and he was willing to let you kill me.”

Anakin curses, looking over at Obi-Wan’s prone form. “You’re staying in that goddamn chair,” he spits at Sidious, “and you -“ he points at Dooku - “are coming with me.” He uses the Force to firmly grasp Dooku’s hands together in lieu of chains, and pulls the two Sith behind him. He pulls Obi-Wan over his shoulder, and he looks so incredibly out of his depth that Dooku almost feels pity for him.  Almost .

Dooku could laugh at how silly his Master looks, angrily bound to the chair as he is. He’s straining at his bonds, so Dooku uses his own power to hold him back. The look of fury on the man’s face is something Dooku will treasure for the rest of his life - however short that may be.

Eventually, Obi-Wan wakes up. Anakin quickly brings him up to speed, and Obi-Wan glares at Dooku. “One reason,” he says quietly. “One reason we should believe you.”

“He  was going to have me killed,” Dooku says evenly. “I don’t like being stabbed in the back. Clearly I mean nothing to him now, so why should he mean anything to me? When I die, I want it to be on my terms, not his.”

Obi-Wan stares at him hard. “You have proof?”

“Naturally.”

“This is preposterous!” Sidious shouts, and Dooku clamps the man’s mouth shut with a wave of his fingers. 

“No it’s not,” Dooku says. He looks back at Obi-Wan, then raises an eyebrow. “You may cuff me, if it makes you feel more comfortable. I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

Obi-Wan just keeps glaring.

When the four of them finally get back to the Temple, Dooku is almost immediately beset upon by angry Jedi he betrayed. First to come and meet him is his former padawan, Rael Averross. He’s much older than Dooku expected, and not as angry.

“Rael,” he says, nodding appreciatively. “You look well.”

“You don’t get to say that anymore.”

The tone of his former apprentice’s voice hurts more than he’d like to admit. Dooku takes a deep breath, then looks Averross in the eyes.

“What would you like me to say?”

Rael sighs explosively. “I don’t know, okay?” He cries, obviously frustrated. His hand twitches towards his lightsaber, sheathed on his belt. “An apology? An explanation? Something to tell me why you left us, since you never got around to doing it?”

“I’m afraid I cannot,” Dooku says. It’s a testament to how much he values the boy in front of him that he lowers his gaze, even going so far as to lower his head slightly. “I do not regret my actions.”

Rael makes a strange growling noise and storms off. Dooku watches him go.

The other Jedi are not nearly so welcoming. Three even come with their lightsabers drawn, blades hissing in the air. Obi-Wan calms them down, the only thing between Dooku and his death. He will always admire the control the Jedi Master has over others. He could have been a wonderful Sith lord. He voices this thought, and enjoys the brief look of horror on his grandpadawan’s face.

“Do not talk to him,” Anakin hisses. “Don’t you dare.” So Dooku shrugs.

His trial is quick and simple. He’s honest with the Council, giving them the details of every operation he knows. The one request he makes is that Sidious is there with him, just so Dooku can see the look on his face when his plan fails. And it is a glorious look, and Dooku smiles for the first time in decades.

The Senate find them both guilty. Sidious is taken to be executed - not normally what the Jedi would do, but with a man as dangerous as this they do not want to take chances. Dooku is a little sad that he won’t get to see it. The last piece of information he gives privately to Obi-Wan, who comes to visit him in his cell.

“The Clones,” Dooku says, looking up from a book he’d convinced a droid to steal from him.

“What about them?” Obi-Wan asks, defensive.

“They have an inhibitor chip in their brains,” Dooku explains. “In the anterior cingulate cortex. That’s the part of the brain that controls obedience. We placed it there in order to control them.”

Obi-Wan looks furious. “They are people!” He shouts. “Real people! And you -“

“Careful, Obi-Wan,” Dooku interrupts. “Anger is a Sith emotion, you know. We wouldn’t want you to Fall.”

He smirks almost imperceptibly at the Jedi’s reaction, which is to tense his body and glare. “Why are you telling me this?”

“We planned to destroy the Jedi from the inside. The inhibitor chip allowed Lord Sidious to give the clones an order - an order which included killing every single Jedi. Including you, Obi-Wan, but not including your padawan. You should probably get the chips removed - it’s perfectly harmless, I assure you. We didn’t want the clones to be defective.”

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan is still focused on Dooku’s earlier bombshell. “Why the rest of us and not him?”

“Lord Sidious was in the process of grooming him to become a Sith Lord. Giving him visions of his loved ones dying, sowing seeds of doubt into his mind, the usual. I see now that he planned to replace me with the boy. I didn’t want that.”

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan repeats, sounding like he’d just been kicked in the chest. He turns on his heel and practically sprints out of the cell. Dooku simply leans back against the wall and goes back to his book, satisfied that he’d returned his betrayal tenfold.

It’s a medi-droid that finds him there, hours later, looking almost as if he were sleeping, the finished book clutched in his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> well! guess i gave dooku a redemption arc. i’m very annoyed with myself for that, i didn’t mean to.
> 
> anyways. thoughts?


End file.
